Recently, an IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) based communication protocol (hereafter, referred to as an IPv6 protocol) has become commercially practical. Since a shift from the widely used IPv4 based communication protocol (hereafter, referred to as an IPv4 protocol) to the IPv6 protocol thoroughly and immediately is impossible and a considerable time period is required to completely shift to the IPv6 protocol, it is considered that a network environment having mixed protocols of IPv4 and IPv6 is used during a period of the shift from IPv4 to IPv6. In Japanese Patent Provisional Publication No. 2000-183874, a technique for managing a node having IPv4 and IPv6 addresses on a management device is suggested.
In a network including a management device and nodes, the management device is able to obtain an address assigned to each node by broadcasting or multicasting a request for address information and receiving the address information returned from the nodes in response to the request. In a network environment including an IPv4 based node and an IPv6 based node, the management device is able to obtain address information from an IPv4 node by outputting a request for address information by broadcast based on IPv4 without specifying an address of each node in the request. The management device is also able to obtain address information from an IPv6 node by outputting a request for address information by multicast based on IPv6 without specifying an address of each node in the request.